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Sgt. Carlos Michael, with the Chatham County Sheriffs Department, recently saw a familiar face on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.

On Nov. 5, the sheriff’s department had tried to serve a warrant at the man’s last known residence, but he wasn’t there. After calling for backup, Michael confronted the man on the street and booked him for violating probation.

“This was one of the pretty simple ones,” Michael said.

Several thousand others who have warrants issued for their arrest are less simple.

As recently as Nov. 2, the Chatham County Sheriff’s Department had 10,272 outstanding warrants to serve.

While a majority of the warrants were issued within the past 10 years, many of them date back to the 1990s.

Most warrants are issued for individuals who failed to show up for court or grand jury indictments or who have violated probation. What varies is the seriousness of the original crime. Charges range from fishing without a license to homicide.

About 32 percent of the 5,508 warrants issued through October this year were for felonies, according to data provided by the sheriff’s department. About 87 percent of those felony warrants were served. Overall, there was about a 73 percent clearance rate. The remaining warrants get backlogged as new ones arrive.

The sheriff’s department makes at least one attempt to apprehend all of the individuals who have a warrant against them, whether guilty of a minor infraction or a major felony. The warrants are a court order, and sheriff’s officers can’t pick and choose, Michael said.

“Either the state is a victim, or a person is a victim,” he said.

When warrants go unserved, it means the county and Savannah lose money because court fines and fees are tied to the warrants. For instance, one outstanding Recorders Court warrant from 2008, pulled randomly from the thousands on file, was for a man who owed $2,063 for driving under the influence and other charges. As long as such individuals remain unaccounted for, those penalties go unpaid.

The revenue derived from the fines and fees goes to the Superior Court Clerk’s Authority, the City of Savannah’s and the county’s general fund, as well as various programs such as law enforcement training and victim assistance.

Recorder’s Court officials were unable to provide the total amount of unpaid fines and fees tied to warrants in time for publication.

Many times, a person just disappears. They may have moved or died. Some hide. Michael said he has found people hiding in dryers, under sinks and inside air-conditioning vents. If no one is home, deputies leave a notice to turn themselves in.

The warrant list is checked during traffic stops, license renewals and jail visits, said Col. John Wilcher,

Some people, in fact, do not even know they are being sought. They may have forgotten about their court date or thought it wasn’t a big deal if it was for something like a traffic citation, but they are wrong, Wilcher said.

“If they think they have warrants on them, they need to turn themselves in to the sheriff’s office,” he said.

The department has 19 enforcement deputies charged with serving warrants.

Former jail administrator and unsuccessful 2012 sheriff’s candidate McArthur Holmes raised the issue during an election debate on Oct. 30 with his opponent, Sheriff Al St Lawrence. Holmes said not enough was being done to reduce the backlog and suggested jail staff should be put on the streets to help.

“I think that some of the issues we are having in the city as it relates to the criminals that are out in the community can be directly related to the number of outstanding warrants that we have in the community,” he said.

St Lawrence said jail deputies are already “taxed to the max.”

“We’re doing everything we can do without additional resources,” St Lawrence said. “There is no more that can be done.”

If deputies were taken out of the jail, Wilcher said, the facility would not be adequately secured.

In a staffing study submitted in September, the National Sheriffs’ Association took note of the accumulating backlog and recommended the department hire two deputies to help relieve the stress on the warrants division.

The need for the additional manpower has become even more pressing due to a change to state law that strengthens the use of probation for misdemeanor offenses, according to the report. The change is expected to increase the number of warrants issued for probation violations.

“Some relief rather than additional duties are evidently required if the interests of effective criminal justice are to be served,” the report states.

Funding for the positions is not included in this year’s budget as the county focuses on staffing the jail, which is undergoing a $71 million expansion. The county is planning to dip into its reserve funds to cover the estimated $1 million cost of staffing a new housing unit set to open early next year.

Funding for the additional deputies in the warrants division may be included in next year’s budget, however.

If the funding is available for more deputies to serve warrants, there is still another issue to consider. The detention center, after its expansion is complete, will still only be able to accommodate about 2,360 inmates.

“If you give me 50 people to work it, then you’re going to fill my jail up,” Wilcher said.

THE WARRANTS

WARRANTS FROM JANUARY-OCTOBER 2012

• MISDEMEANOR WARRANTS ISSUED: 3,714

• MISDEMEANOR WARRANTS SERVED: 2,457 (66 PERCENT)

• FELONY WARRANTS ISSUED: 1,770

• FELONY WARRANTS SERVED: 1,538 (87 PERCENT)

• TOTAL OUTSTANDING WARRANTS, AS OF NOV. 2: 10,272

SOURCE: CHATHAM COUNTY SHERIFF’S DEPARTMENT

COMING MONDAY

County government reporter Eric Curl will examine what will be required to staff the new jail and what it will mean to county revenue.

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... the serving of warrants? Any warrant that can not be served by deputies could be turned over to licensed bonded individuals (think bounty hunter) for process. Individuals doing this would receive a percentage of the fine. This would not require hiring any new employees and result in more fines being collected without paying any additional revenue while still catching the bad guys.

rather than just take the information the sheriff provides why doesn't this reporter gather some facts like the one that researched the City Manager. If you dig further, you will find more. savannah needs more reporters willing to find facts not listen to what they want you to know. savannah government runs however they want and there are no watchdogs out there.

This is the same reporter who would rather eat ramen noodles and pay more taxes! What an idiot! The jail has a revolving door on the front, the cops will not arrest anyone anymore, and our taxes are squandered away on useless projects that no one wants!

"The warrant list is checked during traffic stops, license renewals and jail visits..." Ok, what kind of license renewals does the Sheriff's Office do, and how many traffic stops are Sheriffs' deputies doing per day? Very damn few!! Here's a suggestion: There's a little thing called GCIC/NCIC. Enter these 10,000 or so warrants into NCIC as wanted persons (EW), and have 60,000 law enforcement officers looking for them instead of 19 Sheriff's deputies!

I think the sheriffs office needs to be audited. how many warrants do they enter into gcic/ncic? how many employees are assigned to do this work? police departments and sheriff's Departments are often so top heavy with high ranking peronnel they don't have enough money to pay for the worker bees. maybe someone without an agenda and some authority should have the backbone to do some research. I would like to see a breakdown of the personnel

If they have 19 people who do this and a handful of other duties then the blame is on the sheriff.You St. Lawerance have these peoples social security #s so you also have the ability to check their credit cards,welfare checks,tax returns and even their power bills.How in the world did we end up with his senile tail is beyond me.

I see deputies stopping cars all the time. Also, they do fingerprints for firearms licenses. I also know that they check every individual that comes in for jail visitation. Sounds like you don't know exactly what they do.

If you served 10 warrants a day, it would still take 3 yrs to clear out the backlog. What might help is not letting the ghetto rats come in and swear out a good behavior warrant every time somebody be "fretenen" them. Huge percentage of the backlog would be wiped out.

Send notices out to all the warrant holders telling them they have won a new flat screen TV. When they turn up to claim their "prize" arrest them and take them out the back door so the ones coming in the front door won't know what's happening.

With all that time not writing tickets because it was a election year... what were the deputies doing....guess they were not serving warrants...

What exactly does our sheriff's dept do...a whole lot less than other sheriff dept's do through out our country...Some of that budget should be going to the Police...Waste is rampant throughout the city and county...ridiculous.

The only problem is the city has over a million over due invoices. If we hired someone else they would just quit from not being paid. Also they cant catch all these warrant runners; where would they put them all? We dont have that kind of room in the jails? Once again our great politicians have dropped the ball leaving their community in danger like always. Its a wonder people are leaving in droves.